Having spent my childhood growing up in the San Jose area, I feel a bit chagrined not finding out about this place until now. I found a few advertisements for the Tropicana Village homes online and it looks like the subdivision included some classic A-Frame Tiki-Style architecture.

I lived on McLaughlin Ave which runs parallel with Bayshore Hwy, between Story Rd. and Tully Rd. Our back property line was a fence on Bayshore Hwy. We had 5 acres of Walnuts, 5 acres Prunes, 1 acre tomatoes and 1 acre house and yard with barns and chicken coops. 160 acres of Pears across the street. The BIG 2 story Farm house is still there, but all the truck farms are long gone to Houses. We could hear the Speedway from upstairs windows at night.

I remember when Tropicana Village was built and it was only a mile to Story road from our ranch. The place was NEW and COOL looking in 1958.We (family) sold land for the new expressway. About 1961-62 we moved into a Brand new home, $99 down, $99 month, $10,000 total. My parents used to go to Hawaiian Gardens all the time too.